The Measurement of Intelligence

Measurement of Intelligence, by
Lewis Madison Terman

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Title: The Measurement of Intelligence An Explanation of and a
Complete Guide for the Use of the Stanford Revision and Extension of
the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale
Author: Lewis Madison Terman
Editor: Ellwood P. Cubberley
Release Date: February 25, 2007 [EBook #20662]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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RIVERSIDE TEXTBOOKS IN EDUCATION
EDITED BY ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR
UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION UNDER THE
EDITORIAL DIRECTION OF ALEXANDER INGLIS
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION HARVARD UNIVERSITY

THE MEASUREMENT OF INTELLIGENCE
AN EXPLANATION OF AND A COMPLETE GUIDE FOR THE
USE OF THE STANFORD REVISION AND EXTENSION OF The
Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale
BY
LEWIS M. TERMAN PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION LELAND
STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY
[Illustration]
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK
CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY LEWIS M. TERMAN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED
IN THE U.S.A.

To the Memory OF ALFRED BINET
PATIENT RESEARCHER, CREATIVE THINKER,
UNPRETENTIOUS SCHOLAR; INSPIRING AND FRUITFUL
DEVOTEE OF INDUCTIVE AND DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
The present volume appeals to the editor of this series as one of the
most significant books, viewed from the standpoint of the future of our
educational theory and practice, that has been issued in years. Not only
does the volume set forth, in language so simple that the layman can
easily understand, the large importance for public education of a careful
measurement of the intelligence of children, but it also describes the
tests which are to be given and the entire procedure of giving them. In a
clear and easy style the author sets forth scientific facts of far-reaching
educational importance, facts which it has cost him, his students, and
many other scientific workers, years of painstaking labor to
accumulate.
Only very recently, practically only within the past half-dozen years,
have scientific workers begun to appreciate fully the importance of
intelligence tests as a guide to educational procedure, and up to the
present we have been able to make but little use of such tests in our
schools. The conception in itself has been new, and the testing
procedure has been more or less unrefined and technical. The following
somewhat popular presentation of the idea and of the methods involved,
itself based on a scientific monograph which the author is publishing
elsewhere, serves for the first time to set forth in simple language the
technical details of giving such intelligence tests.
The educational significance of the results to be obtained from careful
measurements of the intelligence of children can hardly be
overestimated. Questions relating to the choice of studies, vocational
guidance, schoolroom procedure, the grading of pupils, promotional

schemes, the study of the retardation of children in the schools, juvenile
delinquency, and the proper handling of subnormals on the one hand
and gifted children on the other,--all alike acquire new meaning and
significance when viewed in the light of the measurement of
intelligence as outlined in this volume. As a guide to the interpretation
of the results of other forms of investigation relating to the work,
progress, and needs of children, intelligence tests form a very valuable
aid. More than all other forms of data combined, such tests give the
necessary information from which a pupil's possibilities of future
mental growth can be foretold, and upon which his further education
can be most profitably directed.
The publication of this revision and extension of the original
Binet-Simon scale for measuring intelligence, with the closer
adaptation of it to American conditions and needs, should mark a
distinct step in advance in our educational procedure. It means the
perfection of another and a very important measuring stick for
evaluating educational practices, and in particular for diagnosing
individual possibilities and needs. Just now the method is new, and its
use somewhat limited, but it is the confident prediction of many
students of the subject that, before long, intelligence tests will become
as much a matter of necessary routine in schoolroom procedure as a
blood-count now is in physical diagnosis. That our schoolroom
methods will in turn become much more intelligent, and that all classes
of children, but especially the gifted and the slow, will profit by such
intellectual diagnosis, there can be but little question.
That any parent or teacher, without training,